When setting up your company structure in Payhawk and inviting employees to join your teams, you'll be asked by the system to define their roles. This assigned role determines their level of access and visibility into your company's expense and spend data within the platform.
Default roles in Payhawk
When inviting an employee, you’ll need to assign one of the default roles that Payhawk provides out of the box, as described in the table below.
Role | Rights |
Employee | Payhawk employees are cardholders of company-issued Payhawk corporate cards. They can submit and categorize their expenses, as well as view details related to their cards and any associated subscriptions. |
Accountant | Payhawk accountants have all the permissions of Payhawk employees, with additional capabilities. They can manage and review expenses, edit extracted data, and export expense information for reporting or accounting purposes. |
Administrator | Payhawk administrators have full access, including all the rights granted to Payhawk accountants. In addition, they can issue and deactivate corporate cards, adjust card limits, configure and enforce spend policies, enable or disable cash withdrawals, invite new employees to the platform, and manage Payhawk billing and other administrative settings. |
Other roles in Payhawk
In addition to the default roles assigned to employees in Payhawk, you can assign additional roles that align with your internal workflows and organizational requirements.
Payhawk allows you to create roles that relate to your company’s structure such as:
Team manager
Second level manager
Category manager
Custom field manager
Specific employees for custom approval workflows
For more information, see the article about workflow approvers.
General visibility rules in Payhawk
Assigning a role to an employee in Payhawk defines their specific visibility rights. Payhawk limits access to expenses, purchases, and expense reports based on certain conditions:
An employee can only view expenses or purchase requests they have personally submitted (that is, they are their owners) or those associated with a team where they have been assigned as the Team manager.
Changes to user roles only impact visibility for future expenses. Existing workflows and approvals for previously submitted expenses remain unaffected.
Expenses submitted without a proper team assignment may interrupt approval workflows. By default, these expenses are routed to Payhawk administrators for approval. For more details, see the article about workflow fallbacks.
User roles and team-based visibility
In Payhawk, both roles and team assignments play a key role in determining what employees can see within the platform. Visibility of expenses is governed by an employee’s user role and their association with specific teams:
Employees can view expenses or purchase requests they’ve submitted, as well as those linked to teams they manage.
If an employee does not belong to or manage the team associated with an expense, they will not have access to view it.
During out-of-office scenarios, workflow approvals can be delegated; however, visibility rights are not transferred. As a result, delegated approvers must complete approvals directly from the Payhawk Inbox.
Certain roles, such as Payhawk administrators or designated Team managers, can submit expenses on behalf of other employees.
Role changes and account modifications
When a Payhaw role is changed (for example, from Employee to Accountant), the user's visibility rights will be updated accordingly. However, approval workflows are only affected for expenses submitted after the change. This approach ensures that existing workflows for previously submitted expenses remain intact and are not disrupted.
Modifications to account settings, such as changes to payment methods or card assignments, may temporarily affect how expense reports are displayed. To avoid disruptions, ensure that all transactions are properly linked and up to date.
Best practices for expense submission and proper routing
To maintain accurate visibility and ensure expenses are routed correctly for approval, follow these best practices:
Employees have to always complete all mandatory fields, particularly the Team field, before submitting an expense. Missing or incorrect information can disrupt both visibility and the approval workflow.
If an expense has been routed incorrectly, owners need to ask for it to be returned, update the necessary fields, and resubmit it. This will trigger a refreshed approval workflow based on the corrected information.